Signe Vikkelsø

About

View research profile and publications

E-mail

ssv.ioa@cbs.dk

Telephone

Office: +4538152827

Mobile: +4541852280

Departments

Department of Organization

Room: KIL/14.A-4.94

View research profile and publications

Subjects

Organisation Centralisation Decentralisation Change management Technology Sociology History

Primary research areas

Formal organization

My research addresses the role of formal organization in business, public administration, and society. It examines different understandings of formal organization, the organizational consequences of inadequate formalization, and the widespread preference for informal organization as a solution to organizational problems.

History of organization theory

I am interested in the history of organization theory and its relationship with other disciplines, including sociology, engineering, and economics. My work has examined the changing conceptual repertoire of classical and contemporary organization theory, including the rise and fall of concepts such as “task” and “change.”

Science, technology and organization

I am interested in the entanglement of science, technology, and organization. My research has explored, for example, the organizational tensions of innovation partnerships and the “isomorphic differences” across national science, technology, and innovation policies in China, the United States, and Denmark.

Organizational tools

I study organizational tools and artifacts and how they shape organizational life. My current work examines the organizational diagram as a tool for depicting, accounting for, and thinking about organizations, while more broadly exploring how material objects participate in organizing.

Organizational change

My research addresses the organizational consequences of new technologies, management strategies, and continuous organizational change across a range of settings, including healthcare, industry, and banking. It explores how these developments affect organizational attention, coordination, decision-making, and control systems.

I study what makes good organization

I am Professor of Science, Technology, and Organization, with a background in social psychology from the University of Copenhagen and a PhD in Organization and Management Studies from Copenhagen Business School.

My research examines how organizations are constituted, understood, and governed through formal structures, organizational tools, technologies, and theories. Drawing on organization theory, science and technology studies, and the sociology of work, I explore questions such as: What characterizes good organization? How do organizational tools and artifacts shape organizing? And how do organizational change and new technologies influence organizational attention, coordination, and decision-making? Empirically, I have studied these questions in healthcare, manufacturing, innovation partnerships, and banking using qualitative methods including ethnography, interviews, and archival research.

I teach and supervise within organization and management studies, particularly in the areas of organization studies, the management of teams and processes, and research management.

I have served as research leader or core member of four externally funded collaborative research projects and have supervised 18 PhD students. I have extensive leadership experience, having served seven years as Head of Department and currently serving as Head of Studies for the master's programmes in Organization, Strategy, Leadership and People. I am also a member of the Social Sciences Research Council under Independent Research Fund Denmark.

Recent research projects

“Seeing Organization: The Socio-Material History of the Organizational Chart”

The project addresses the role of the organizational chart in society and explores the chart’s entanglement with changing modes of representational practices, shifts in organization and management theory, and transformations in work, production, capital, and regulation.

“Formal Organization – Past, Present, and Future”

The project addresses formal organization as a contested topic in organization and management theory, organizational sociology, and psychology and discusses the implications of this disagreement.